Hell’s bells to those who tell hip-hop choreographer Jennifer Weber that the sacred holiday tradition of The Nutcracker has been irreverently tinkered with in The Hip Hop Nutcracker. “Isn’t that what hip hop is all about?” says the Brooklyn-based founder and artistic director of Decadancetheatre, an all-female, hip-hop dance theater…
With projections putting significant swathes of South Florida underwater within the next 100 years, MDC Live Arts’ presentation of “Holoscenes” seems particularly prescient. Taking place on the Wolfson Campus’ Kyriakides Plaza over the course of Miami Art Week, the exhibition is a performance installation that explores life underwater. Spanning the…
Jessica Lang is inspired by artistic collaborations. Her pieces testify to the transformative power of movement, music, and visual composition coming together to create a mesmerizing performance. All of that will be on display this weekend when Lang’s troupe debuts in South Florida at the South Miami-Dade County Cultural Arts…
Miami City Ballet opens its season Friday night at the Arsht Center with a program that is representative of what artistic director Lourdes Lopez calls a major milestone for a ballet company of its size — 30 years as Miami’s resident ballet company. It will be a season that tips…
For the fourth year in a row, Dance Now! Miami fronted by Hannah Baumgarten and Diego Salterini will be presenting the Daniel Lewis Sampler. In partnership with Miami Dance Futures and Florida Dance Education Organization, Dance Now! puts on the annual showcase of local work as a snapshot of both…
This week, MDC Live Arts brings the explosive energy of Combinado Argentino de Danza to Miami for their U.S. debut, featuring a series of pop-up performances and residency workshops, culminating in a performance at Miami Beach’s Colony Theater on Saturday. Founded in 2011 by artistic director Andrea Servera, Combinado Argentino…
When former Miami City Ballet prima ballerina, Mary Carmen Catoya, debuts as Arts Ballet Theatre (ABT) of Florida’s principal dancer, it will be a double reunion of sorts. Years ago, she danced with ABT’s guest choreographer, Alberto Méndez, in his work Tarde en la Siesta. “I did many ballets with him,”…
If musical talent was encoded in our DNA, Carlos Averhoff Jr. inherited a genetic boon. Born in Havana to Cuban saxophone legend Carlos Averhoff Sr., his official bio playfully claims that he learned to play in the womb, and one can easily envision his father tapping rhythms against his mother’s…
Daily, Michelle Grant-Murray regularly steps into the varied roles of mother-wife-daughter-teacher-dancer-choreographer, so it is no surprise that her latest solo work, Kahina, A Tangled Root, is an exploration of the female body in all of its complex manifestations. “I started working on it as an investigation of my own body…
Marc Ribot’s musical career spans multiple decades, and even more sounds. His lush guitar riffs have played with everyone from Tom Waits and John Zorn to Elvis Costello and Norah Jones. This week, for the first time in his storied career, Tigertail Productions brings Marc Ribot to Miami for a…
Havana Habibi, a film by local dancer Tiffany “Hanan” Madera, has been in the works for more than a decade. Havana Habibi documents Madera’s experience teaching belly dance in Cuba to a small group of women from the University of Havana’s History Department. This artistic exchange led to the formation…
In Andalucía, Spain’s southernmost region and the birthplace of flamenco, during the dog days of summer the sun doesn’t go down until after 10:00 p.m., and it’s only then that any self-respecting flamenco festival kicks into gear. The beer and wine flow, kids play in the dirt aisles between sets…
On August 20-22nd, the Ifé Ilé Afro-Cuban Dance Festival returns to Miami for its 17th year. Annually, the festival offers workshops, panel discussions and performances of Cuban dance and music, led by visiting artists and masters in the field. The 2015 festival is super-charged due to an infusion of funding…
Why is it so delicious when Cubans dance salsa?” asks Marisol Blanco, a former member of the National Folkloric Troupe of Cuba, who has been teaching dance in Miami since 2008. Her answer: “Because of this African movement that comes from rumba and son.” Plenty of books will tell you…
For the last six weeks, Wynwood has been alight with more art making than normal for the summer as Arts for Learning Miami has transformed the neighborhood into a creative campus for its fourth annual ArtWorks Internship program. It culminates with two performances this week featuring work from students in…
The South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center will present The Chicago Repertory Ballet Company this coming Saturday night, the first chance for Miami audiences to see this company, just three years old, and already being heralded by the Chicago Tribune as “wonderfully dramatic.” One might add “mightily varied” as well. “I…
Peter London Global Dance Company takes the stage at Little Haiti Cultural Arts Center on July 18 with their annual Heat Wave summer showcase. Featuring a world premiere new work by Peter London, the program will also feature two pieces by choreographer Luis Alberto Cuevas. By fusing contemporary dance and…
Bite size portions of theater, fresh writing and some well known actors, all available at a reasonable price in an intimate, unusual setting has turned Micro Teatro Miami into one of the longest running, and perhaps most unlikely hits, in South Florida’s cultural scene. Using seven shipping containers parked on…
Dancer and choreographer Annabel Guérédrat, a native of the Caribbean island of Martinique, creates dance works that fuse her childhood background in dance with her experiences as professor of literature in Paris and as a Butoh dancer. Quite a combination. Deeply ritualistic, her work is a performance study investigating socio-political…
Dance Now! Miami closes its 15th Anniversary season at the Little Haiti Cultural Arts Center this weekend on Saturday and Sunday, inviting audiences to get “Into the Heat” of summer by cooling down with the Florida Premiere of Winter’s Breath, one of several dances in the closing “Heat” program. Like…
Local choreographer Rosie Herrera, one of Miami’s notable creative offspring, is known for a particular style of snarky and darkly humorous dance theater. But for Cookie’s Kid, her newest project with Miami Light Project opening this weekend, Herrera is turning inward to a more vulnerable creative space. We had a…
While the performance season is coming to a close, Miami still has more to celebrate as Augusto Soledade’s Brazzdance turns 10 years old. “Wow,” he says. He hopes Miami audiences will say the same when Brazzdance honors this anniversary with a program called “Oduns” — stories of finding one’s path…
